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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319817">Trash Fire Vampire Gift</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadMags/pseuds/MadMags'>MadMags</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, Gift Fic, M/M, Vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:47:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319817</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadMags/pseuds/MadMags</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"How long have you been standing there?" he rasped, voice a bare whisper out of a starving throat.</p><p>The candle light flickered in the stone morgue.  </p><p>"Longer than you'd like," came the reply from his flatmate. In the darkness of the hallway, another body shifted and disappeared. </p><p>Gift drabble based on a trio of prompts for madrabbitgirl.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/John Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trash Fire Vampire Gift</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/madrabbitgirl/gifts">madrabbitgirl</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The woman’s arm fell from Sherlock’s pale hands. The wound on the body’s wrist no longer oozed. Blood smeared his mouth, not garishly so, just a smear across his full bottom lip like a macabre paint. Pale eyes had gone black with bloodlust, red veins stood out on his paled skin.</p><p>His tongue flicked out to clear the stain from his lips.</p><p>"How long have you been standing there?" he rasped, voice a bare whisper out of a starving throat.</p><p>The candle light flickered in the stone morgue.  </p><p>"Longer than you'd like," came the reply from his flatmate. In the darkness of the hallway, another body shifted and disappeared. </p><p>Sherlock Holmes knew taking on a lodger to share his rooms would end in pain. He was no longer the man he once was. He had been changed irrevocably by a dalliance with a man from the gentleman’s club he attended some five years ago. And then circumstances, or fate, or the rotund Mike Stamford could even be blamed, brought the two men together. A doctor and a soldier, a man of science and a detective. </p><p>Inside the cold morgue cellar, the two held a gaze. Sherlock could hear the steady thud-thump, thud-thump of Watson’s heart. </p><p>“I can explain?” he tried, head turning away slightly, as if to guess his chances at running. A stone wall was all that stood at his back.</p><p>He’d mesmerized dear Molly “Maury” Hooper. A woman masquerading as a man to work in the medical field. He’d aided her efforts, and exploited them. All he’d wanted was to live, remain as he was, a consulting detective. The damned blood fever, the cravings, and hunger! Damn it all.</p><p>He’d kept himself away from Watson, both his inversion and his dark needs. Some secrets were not meant to be laid on men like Watson. Sherlock had lived in fear of which secret would be revealed first. He was certain that Watson’s constant courting of women would eventually unveil his own perversion, when no women turned his head, unless it was a pounding throat.</p><p>“I’m afraid you’re going to have to, my good man,” Watson replied in that same gentle affection reserved for nights by the fireside. “Come away from there. It’s a conversation better left for the privacy of our rooms, hm?”</p><p>Sherlock was entranced. His great coat rustled as he moved around the embalming table. Leaving behind the remains of his shame, he allowed himself to be steered away.</p><p>Molly stood with her back to the wall, cap pulled tightly around her ears. She raised her head slightly as Sherlock was pressed forward with a hand at his back from dear Dr. Watson.</p><p>“This can’t get any worse, can it?” she whimpered softly. Guilt tore at her for revealing his secret. </p><p>“Most certainly it can - just give me a minute,” Sherlock replied in self-deprecation, marching forward like a prisoner to the gallows.</p><p>“Don’t make a scene now,” John warned, knowing they still needed to pass through rooms ahead, find a hansom or taxi to return them to Baker Street. </p><p>The two men rode in silence, yet John Watson managed to keep a hold on Sherlock’s person from the moment they stepped out of the room at the morgue. Whether a hand at his back or a thigh pressed together in the hansom cab, fingers at his elbow as they ascended the stairs - Sherlock found himself grounded by the simple touch of his friend.</p><p>His body went cold as Watson let go to stoke up the fire, laying another log across it to brighten the room. It was plenty for Sherlock to see the width and breadth of the man. His eyes remained dilated to better seek prey in the darkness. Watson perched in the chair that had been deemed his since he arrived at Baker Street. </p><p>The doctor nodded towards the detective’s own chair.</p><p>“Sit,” he commanded.</p><p>“As you wish,” Sherlock replied, taking the place gingerly.</p><p>“Explain yourself.”</p><p>Sherlock blinked rapidly, face warmed by the fire. His lips had gone colder though, fear icing through him.</p><p>“I was, for a time, a regular member of a certain caliber of night clubs - “</p><p>“Drugs dens? Opium.” </p><p>Sherlock shook his head. How he wished Watson had been right. The use of pharmaceuticals was reserved for time alone. To make him feel not so alone.</p><p>“Molly houses.”</p><p>He saw understanding wash across Watson’s face.</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>But clearly he wasn’t surprised, or offended, so Sherlock continued his damnation.</p><p>“A night of no particular intrigue led me to - “ He paused at the vulgarity of the situation. He was rarely worried about indelicate topics, but this was John. His flatmate, his friend.</p><p>“Come now, man, I’ve heard worse.”</p><p>Doubtful, the detective thought.</p><p>“A dalliance with a man I’d only just met ended in an assault upon my person. Not a beating like one might expect in a situation such as that.” Sherlock picked a cuticle, glancing up at John’s unwavering stare. “My throat had been bitten. At first, I believed in intimacy, but the man became savage. I lost blood at a rapid pace, growing weaker and unable to break the hold of my captor. I fought back with what strength I had, though I dare say it was like fighting a brick wall. I sunk to the ground, vision darkening as blood loss became too great.”</p><p>John did not interrupt.</p><p>“I awoke in a bed, clothing changed and a strange glass of dark fluid - blood - “ Sherlock corrected. Those early days, he’d attempted to delude himself from the truth. “I drank like a dying man. There was no one about, so I stole away in the night to return to my rooms on Montague Street.”</p><p>“And then?” John prompted, now leaning forward in his chair with elbows upon his knees. His brow twisted in concern.</p><p>“I was still new to working with the Yard. I had been observed working under the influence of various concoctions, so aberrant behavior was dismissed as drugs,” Sherlock continued, feeling outside himself as he did. “At first I did not understand the cravings and needs I had now. It seemed a bad dream. Once I realized and accepted the necessary precautions against harming a living soul, I befriended our Maury Hooper with regular access to the recently departed. It’s sustained me for the last three years.”</p><p>“But if you’re caught, Holmes?!” Watson breathed, hand reaching out for Sherlock’s knee. “What then?”</p><p>“Then I am caught.”<br/>
Desecration of the dead is preferable to murdering the living in Sherlock’s opinion. </p><p>The hand on his knee burned with a bright heat through his trouser leg.</p><p>“I do not schedule my practice. I am hidden in the bowels of the hospital, with few confidants to give me away.”</p><p>Watson’s thumb grazed along Sherlock’s patella, outlining the bone.</p><p>“On a scale from one to ten, how bad do you think it would be if - “</p><p>“Twenty.”</p><p>Sherlock glared across at his impertinent flatmate. He should have anticipated this. </p><p>“But - ”</p><p>“Absolutely not, John,” Sherlock hissed, grasping the man’s wrist to keep him close. “Even now I can scent your blood, hear your pulse under your skin, and feel the warmth of life around you. I cannot say you would survive one assault, much less consider it a viable alternative?”</p><p>“But - “</p><p>“I could kill you, or worse!”</p><p>Watson ignored this threat to thread his free hand through Sherlock’s dark and wild curls, pulling their mouths together. A pained whine broke from the detective’s throat. “No,” he protested between presses of lips. “John.”</p><p>“Safer than a molly house,” John panted from his perch of Sherlock’s thighs. Their noses brushed as Sherlock tilted his head towards John’s jaw. He could practically taste the doctor’s pulse. “Consent must make it easier.”</p><p>Pale hands tightened on tweed covered hips. </p><p>“Harder,” Sherlock murmured. The hands in his hair tugged, angling his open mouth kisses as their movements grew bolder. “John.”</p><p>Shirts were unbuttoned and untucked, trousers rucked as hands roamed. His restraint was only by the grace of the blood from earlier, but it was running thin as John’s pulse ratched faster. Firm hands continued to guide him back to vulnerable veinous skin. </p><p>“Holmes,” he commanded, gentle, firm. </p><p>Sherlock shook his head, continuing to drag his full lips along the column of John’s throat.</p><p>“Sherlock.”</p><p>Sherlock closed his eyes, reddened with the strain of holding back the beast. Fangs descended, cutting sharply into soft flesh. </p><p>He heard John’s soft gasp just before his mouth flooded with life. The pleasure pain pushed them to completion, slowing their embrace until Sherlock merely lapped at the doctor lax in his arms. Not dead, just sated. In Sherlock’s wildest hopes, he’d never imagined.</p><p>“See, that. Once or twice a week -”</p><p>“Month,” Sherlock growled.</p><p>“A week. You’ll be right as rain. Mm?” Watson continued as though they were discussing the eating of fruit or bathing to improve one’s health.</p><p>The doctor went to stand, swaying under his own power until Sherlock rose to grasp his arm.</p><p>“I’m just fine, my good man,” he assured Sherlock. “Just fine. Perhaps some tea though, with sugar and milk.” He patted Sherlock’s hand as though his trousers weren’t still damp at the front and shirt askew on his shoulder. “It’s all fine.”</p>
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